


Tender Loving Care

by Kestrel337



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, OT3, Other, Polyamory, Rupert Graves Birthday Auction 2016, post sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 18:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10668378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrel337/pseuds/Kestrel337
Summary: Greg had a lousy day at work and needs some TLC.





	Tender Loving Care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WastingYourGum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WastingYourGum/gifts).



> Way back in June 2016, WastingYourGum won my offering in the Rupert Graves birthday auction. 
> 
> Here it finally is.

Back when he’d signed the lease on the parking space, three blocks walk hadn’t seemed that far. Near enough, in fact, to be worth a premium rent even if the garage was a bit down at the heels. 

Granted, he’d not been thinking about walking those three blocks in the after-drizzle of a cold and windy all-day rain. Or after working overtime to uncover the source of badly tainted drugs, on the heels of a week long stomach bug that robbed him of sleep, hydration, and several pounds. But it’d been good getting back into it. Until ‘just a few interviews; you’re the best one, really’ had turned into ‘as long as you’re here can you coordinate the teams’. And then they’d called in Sherlock who’d been delighted at the chance to work with Greg, however marginally, and of course dragged him along to canvass his network. Only after a breathless foot-chase and a vicious fist-fight had it occurred to Sherlock that maybe Greg oughtn’t to be outside in the wet and cold, and by then it was too late. Someone had to do the official paperwork. He’d propped himself at his desk to push through the reports with gritty eyes and a body that had long since stopped trying to get warm. Driving home he’d kept the radio on and the windows down, and made it home alive and mostly awake. Ought to have seen the whole mess coming, really, and nobody to blame but himself. 

Still. They’d made the arrest. And he was headed home not to a silent flat, or a resentful wife. Two men who were rarely silent and, if occasionally they argued, well. Neither of them had ever suggested he just go to bed with his warrant card, or set up a cot in his office if he was only coming home for a kip and a fresh shirt. 

Which ought to have made it easy, these last two blocks. “Come on, Greg. One foot in front of the other, and there’ll be hot tea and a hot shower and a warm bed.” They’d promised, John and Sherlock had. They’d sworn that they’d make him some dinner -canned soup, probably, but he wouldn’t be nuking it himself- and he wasn’t sure but he thought someone had said something about a hot water bottle. If looking forward to that made him old, so be it; his feet hadn’t been properly warm in absolute ages. 

A cab drove by, far too fast for the zone, and he nearly missed his footing in his attempt to duck the spray thrown up by its tyres, stumbling comically and stepping off the kerb into an ankle deep puddle. He wanted to swear, to let loose with a volley of profanity that would sum up the whole miserable day and maybe hint at the filthy week he’d had before that. The best his wooly brain could offer was ‘shit’, followed somewhat belatedly by ‘stupid arsehole’. Hardly worth the energy needed to speak them, and by the time he came up with even that anemic epithet the car was long gone. Wearily, he twisted his key in the lock and stumbled into the vestibule, which was marginally warmer than outside.

It didn’t help as much as he’d hoped, but that was probably due to his damp clothes, and a belly that had skipped past hunger pangs straight into nausea. Or just possibly it was because of the staircase that stood between him and his refuge. “Everest. Kilimanjaro. Baker Street,” he muttered, and wondered if scaling ropes would be enough to make the seventeen steps feel less Olympian. “Ought to put in an escalator,” he said to nobody, and sank into the chair at the base of the stairs. It had been a long walk from the car park. He’d rest for a minute or two, and then go upstairs. He let his eyes drift closed. Just a minute, that’s all. It was dim in here, and quiet, and out of the rain, and he didn’t register the sound of a door opening, didn’t clock the presence that hovered over him, until a hand squeezed his shoulder, and Mrs Hudson was scolding him, fond and exasperated. 

“Greg dear, you don’t want to be sleeping here.” 

“G’way. I do. Want.” It was too much trouble to open his eyes. “Sleeping,” he pointed out, hoping that Mrs Hudson would take the hint and just let him be. 

The smoke detector upstairs started screaming, followed by shouting voices. Greg forced his eyes open to check for flames, decided they didn’t need to evacuate just yet, and wriggled further into the chair. To the slow thud of Mrs Hudson’s feet on the staircase, he slipped again into the blessed darkness. But it wasn’t to be; here came more footsteps, louder and faster and far too many for just one person. 

“Greg?” 

Oh. She’d got John. Greg tried not to look too much like a dead body. 

“Just look at the state of him! Soaking wet, and so pale. He’s not recovered yet, anyone can see that. Call yourself a doctor.”

“Doctor, not clairvoyant. I didn’t hear him come in.” 

“And no wonder, the noise up there.” She turned on Sherlock. “He needs peace and quiet.” 

“Yes, alright.” Sherlock gestured for John to take Greg while continuing to talk to Mrs Hudson. “We’ll get him both, and some food too, if I can borrow some bread. And your toaster...” Sherlock’s voice echoed from her flat, Mrs Hudson following in his wake. Greg stared muzzily after them, certain that there was something alarming about what Sherlock had just said. He let his eyes drift shut, the better to think. 

“Greg, love, come on. Let’s get you upstairs.” John was pulling at his arm, dragging it over his shoulder and hoisting him up. The toaster was forgotten. 

“You’re very strong.” Just one of the things he loved about this man.

“Thank you for noticing. Okay, eyes open. Up we go.” 

Sherlock caught up with them on the stairs, following them into the sitting room and locking the door with a decisive thunk. “His lips are blue,” he observed.

“He’s not hypothermic, but I do want to get him warmed up. Close the windows, yeah?” John continued into the bathroom, ignoring Greg’s irritated grumbles about ‘bed’, and ‘now’, and ‘just let me be, already’. 

Instead, he was settled on the toilet lid, head tipped back so John could examine his face. Blunt fingers stroked over his cheeks, pausing to press lightly around his nose. “How’d you get the nose bleed?”

“Little bastard.” 

“Pretty sure my parents were married.” 

“Not you. Never you. Sullivan took a few swings at me before we got him cuffed.” John’s hands were warm where they slid inside his jacket. He shivered when it slipped off his shoulders to mound up against the porcelain. 

“I assume you added assaulting an officer to the drugs charge,” Sherlock rumbled, and turned on the tub. “The smoke should be gone. A few candles will clear the smell.” 

John hummed and began pushing buttons through the damp cotton of Greg’s shirt. Greg closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch John’s face as his abused torso was revealed. To his credit, John just sucked in a hard breath, not speaking until he’d mapped out the rising bruises. He examined Greg’s back, stroking along his spine and ribcage to check for unseen damage. A lingering kiss on the top of Greg’s head, and he was back to business. “Foot. Up.” 

He stared down at his toes and thought he probably ought to be embarrassed. They were pale, and dark hairs poked up over wrinkled knobby joints. An old man’s feet, but John cradled them against his thighs, chafed them gently to encourage blood flow. “Icicles, these are.” 

John patted his hip so he could stand up and have his trousers and pants worked laboriously down the clammy skin of his legs. “Aren’t you supposed to buy me dinner first?” It was a weak attempt and John didn’t give it more response than it deserved. 

“You’ll get fed. I’m not putting you to bed with an empty stomach, not now we’ve got your appetite back online. Into the tub.” 

He’d known it was going to sting. He gritted his teeth against the pain of chilled flesh rapidly warmed, inhaled the rosemary and citrus Sherlock had added to the water. Inch by inch he lowered himself until he was fully immersed. John tucked a rolled up towel between his shoulders and the tub. 

“God, that’s nice,” Greg said, aiming for a sexy growl but getting an exhausted groan instead. 

“First I’m a bastard, now I’m God?” 

“Gift from him, anyway. Or her. Or them. Whatever.” 

“You’re babbling, love,” John said. “Close your mouth, close your eyes. Dinner soon; Sherlock said something about scrambled eggs.” 

“Sherlock hates cooking.” 

“Yes, I do. I’m glad you appreciate the sacrifice I make on your behalf,” Sherlock said, poking his head in the door. He turned to John to ask, “How is he, really?”

“Just a bit roughed up. He’s had worse.” 

“Not on the heels of norovirus. That’s going to complicate things.” 

“Might slow things down a bit, but he really will be fine,” John said, weighting his voice with all the authority of his training. 

There was a heavy silence, and Greg glanced over to see John clasping Sherlock’s shoulder and looking earnestly into his eyes. “Trust me on this, love.” 

Sherlock nodded, then caught sight of Greg watching and straightened quickly. “Of course he will. Unless he catches pneumonia from all the cold air you’re letting in,” and he quickly shut the door in John’s face. 

John shook his head and picked up the shampoo. After a quick glance around the room he grabbed the cup that ordinarily held their toothbrushes. Sherlock had binned them that first endless night, washed the cup with bleach, and was keeping the new ones in a jar of listerine until he was certain the danger was past. Now John used the cup to wet Greg’s hair. “Close your eyes.” 

“Then I can’t watch you.” 

“Didn’t someone once say that love is blind?” John rubbed his palms briskly together to lather up the shampoo. 

Greg shut his eyes. “Fair enough, and who minds groping?” He reached out, intending to drag one hand over John’s zip, but ended up with a handful of knee instead. 

John ignored that in favor of leaning awkwardly over the tub to work the lather through Greg’s hair, rubbing gentle circles behind his ears. John’s breath ghosted over his face. “It’d be impressive, you getting up to any nonsense in this state.” 

The pending headache he’d carried through the day retreated beneath the gentle pressure of John’s thumbs, and allowed himself to slip a bit further into the tub. “‘S’good.” 

“Mm-hm.” John kept up the soothing motion around his temples and Greg fell silent, listening to the rhythmic dripping of the spout. 

“Don’t fall asleep,” John warned him, and he opened his eyes to watch him use the sink to lever himself off the floor. He gestured for Greg to get out of the tub, draping him in the towel that had been warming on the radiator and using a smaller one to soak the water from his hair.

John opened the door and pointed Greg into the main bedroom. Grateful not to be made to climb the stairs to the isolation of his sick-room, Greg went through. Sherlock had set out Greg’s warmest sleep pants and one of his own tee-shirts; a tacit apology for his failure to consider Greg’s well-being earlier. Of course there was a dressing gown, too, the flannel one they’d given him that first Christmas, before he’d confessed that wearing them made him feel old and decrepit. He’d wear it now, and be glad of the extra layer.

“Greg? Eggs are just about ready,” John called. 

“Right, just coming.” He shuffle stepped into the kitchen. The lights were restfully low and candles flickered from strategic corners of the room, driving away the smell of charred bread and electronics.

“I think I might be hungry,” Greg said, gingerly settled into a chair at the breakfast table. 

“Good,” said Sherlock, and offered him a plate. Scrambled eggs, and a piece of toast, and tea. Mrs Hudson had come through, then. She’d probably grumbled a bit, scolding Sherlock in her mild way, but there’d have been no venom in it. Amazing woman, putting up with all of them. And not just putting up with; she loved them as the sons she’d not been granted. “Are you warmer, now?” Greg didn’t miss the once over Sherlock gave him, the intense look that meant he was cataloging every detail. 

“I’m fine. Battered a bit, more than a little tired, but home. Warm. Fed.” Loved, he didn’t say. But the idea came that taking care of him was as much for John and Sherlock as it was for him. Mutually reassuring, this tending and mending. Him, that they still loved him even after the last week, and for them, that he trusted them with his vulnerability. He forked some egg onto the toast and bit into it, savoring the contrast between crisp and fluffy.

“I’ve put you at risk of a relapse.” 

Greg shook his head and considered the plate before him. The eggs really were perfectly fluffy, the way only Sherlock could make them, and the tea had obviously been timed rather than allowed to stew and flooded with milk to disguise the bitterness. “I’m an adult; I could’ve called a stop to it. And anyway, if you’d not called up your network I’d still be there, so I’d say it’s better you did.”

“Even if I’m the reason you were out in the wet and cold?” 

“I’d have ended up there, anyway. We needed your friends, and you persuaded them faster than we’d have done. Can’t fix everything, Sunshine. Sometime the best you can do is make it more bearable.” 

“Did we? You were.Um. Vocal.” Sherlock turned and began fussing with his microscope.

“I wasn’t...Oh! You’re not talking about tonight anymore, are you?” When Sherlock shook his head, Greg changed his defense. “I defy anyone not to moan about puking so hard they shit themselves.” 

“Yes, thank you for bringing that back to mind.” Sherlock was fastidious about the oddest things. 

“Sorry. But, you know, you did. You both did.” 

“He banished you to the upstairs bedroom,” John pointed out.

“I’d have gone anyway. Private bedroom, private bathroom, and I’m pretty well used to taking care of myself. But I didn’t need to. You checked in on me, brought me ORS, changed my sheets when I sweated ‘em all nasty.” He decided not to mention John swearing at him until he allowed his temperature to be taken or bullying him to drink the not-quite-lemon flavored rehydration solution. “So, yeah. You did. And that helped me get well faster, so today I was able to go to work. It turned into more than we expected, but you were there, too, so now I’m reasonably sure that I’m actually not going to have a relapse. Only one thing I need, now, really.” 

John smiled softly and nodded before standing up and starting to blow out the candles. Sherlock watched him, frowning, and looked to Greg. “What? What do you need?”

“I need you, idiot. You, and John, and a bigger bed than upstairs. Pretty sure that’ll cure me for once and all.” He stood and reached out a hand to each of them. It took a bit of shuffling, the hallway being only wide enough for a single person, but they made it work. It's what they did. It's what they always would do.


End file.
